About the Founder

David Chard has lived and worked in Asia since 1976 and is a fluent Mandarin speaker. He has been deeply involved in training and development since 1989, when he first began conducting media spokesperson training and crisis team simulation programs for his public relations clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

Early in his career, as managing director of a multinational public relations consultancy, he became a passionate advocate of training and development for his own team. He quickly realized that if his employer wasn’t going to invest in his development, he would simply have to make an investment in his own future.

He vowed to acquire the expertise needed to develop his own team and to also bring this to the benefit of client organizations. Since that time, over 25 years ago, he has been continuously investing in his own capabilities as a trainer, facilitator and coach for organizations.

His current qualifications as a trainer / coach / facilitator include:

Group Facilitation Methods

Open Space Facilitation

Appreciative Inquiry

Action Learning Methods

Super Learning Methods

Certified Simulation and Gaming Designer

Certified Hypnotherapist and HypnoScript writer

Ontological Coaching (Executive Coaching)

Certified NLP Practitioner

Veteran Media Spokesperson Trainer

Veteran Crisis Simulation designer and facilitator

Self-Authored Leadership Development Workshops:

Enaging Your Audience: How to "Talk Like TED."

Your Business at the Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything

Strategic Thinking Methods: Teams That Think Together

Chard is also a certified trainer of top 3rd party Leadership Development systems:

Personify Leadership from Personify Leadership, Inc.

"Seeing Systems" (The Organization Workshop) from Power and Systems, Inc.

In and Out of the Box from Innogreat, Inc.

Following a long career as a communications consultant to major corporations, Chard also brings a unique skill set in managing corporate reputation, including:

Corporate Messaging Development

Corporate Communication Strategy

Crisis Preparedness and Response

Corporate Social Responsibility

Chard is also a voracious reader of organizational development literature and is constantly integrating new “Learning DNA” into his training programs.

Message from EngagingMinds founder, David Chard:

"If you want to know ‘why’ investing in training and development is important, you only need to consider a question famously posed by management guru Peter Drucker:

"If you don’t grow your people, how do you expect to grow your business?”

"If you persist in believing that “training is a waste of money” then EngagingMinds may not be the place for you.

"However, if your mental pictures of training include a boring, talking head at the front of a seated audience, reading slides and taking questions now and then…then indeed “training” is a waste of time and money.

"EngagingMinds operates from a new paradigm of experiential adult learning, applying the most effective methods to fully engage the minds of all participants in their own learning experience.

"To have people fully engaged, we keep people moving, interacting, thinking, drawing, talking and creating their own meaning from their own experiences. We make learning fun, because science has long ago proved that playing is the best way to learn and always has been. Engaged employees are busy contributing while leading themselves: they stay because they are passionate and as a result they grow the businesses of which they are a part.

"As the founder of EngagingMinds I am 100% committed to helping individuals and organizations become fully engaged with leadership styles and methods that are truly effective. We only use what works: you won’t find theories and fluffy concepts in any of our programs. By making learning experiential and fun, we ensure that participants are authentically engaged in every moment.

"If you want to develop your people; if you want to develop conscious leaders who will develop more leaders like themselves; if you want to be the best leader you can possibly be, please consider EngagingMinds as your partner in learning."